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Thursday, May 26, 2016

Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall and Taipei 101 (Taipei Trip Day 3)

Our third day in Taipei. Coming back from Yehliu Geopark in Manli District, we got off the bus at Taipei Tourism Bureau bus stop. The whole trip from Yehliu Geopark back to Taipei City took us around 1 hour. We took a short break at Burger King and continued our way to Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall (or referred as National Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall).

Sun Yat-Sen is a well-known Chinese revolutionist. He played the key role in overthrowing Qing Dynasty and founded the Republic of China. Died in 1925, he was respected by the people in China and Taiwan. Three memorial halls had been built to commemorate his contribution, one in Taipei, one in Guangzhou China, and one more in Singapore.

To go to the memorial hall from Taipei Tourism Bureau bus stop, walk along the main road towards Taipei 101 direction. The memorial is located around 300 meters away, on the same side with the tourism bureau. The entrance is free, and the opening hours are from 9 am to 6 pm.

The biggest attraction of the memorial hall is the hourly guard exchange ceremony. During our visit, the ceremony started at 3:55 pm. The 10-minute ceremony was performed by the guards of honour. The best place to see the whole ceremony is at front of the statue. However, we need to make sure that we are standing behind the restriction line (the red line). What is the area that will be covered by the red line? We got the information from the staff stationed in the hall, and stood at the "hot spot"- in front of the statue, just behind the red line, some 15 minutes before the ceremony started. The ceremony was interesting but not impressive (we found that the ceremony at Zhongzhen Memorial was better).

The memorial hall is a big building, with a big center hall houses a gigantic bronze statue of Sun Yat-Sen. Flanking on both sides are two smaller exhibition halls, souvenir shops, and function rooms. The compound of the memorial hall itself is a beautiful garden in the city. It is a good location to see Taipei 101 from a distance. In our opinion, unless you are a big fan of Sun Yat-Sen, the memorial hall should be visited together with other place of interest, or else could be quite boring there. We stayed there for 40 minutes. Taipei 101 was our next destination.

Taipei 101 Tower can be seen on our way to Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall (upper left). Both landmarks are close to each other. Along the walkway, we saw rows of motorbikes (upper right) and bicycles (lower right). Some part of the walkway were covered and nicely decorated.

We entered Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall's compund through the side entrance (upper left). The compound is well decorated with stele (upper right), statues (lower right), and a lake.

We took a short stroll around the compound and reached the main entrance of the hall.

The statue of Sun Yat-Sen, guarded by two guards of honour from Taiwan Air Force. We over heard a tourist claimed that the guards must be wax-made statues.

A closer look on the guard. He didn't move a single muscle for one solid hour.

When the time came, the "wax statues" suddenly moved and marched around. All the visitors were required to stand behind the red line.

After the ceremony, we took a quick tour through the exhibition halls and went out to take photos of Taipei 101 Tower.

Another view of Taipei 101 from the memorial hall.

Then, we took a 10-minute walk to Taipei 101 Tower. Basically, we won't get lost in between as the tower is just nearby, and it is too tall to be hidden from our view.

At the top floor of the shopping mall, a long queue of visitors were waiting to go up to the observatory of Taipei 101 Tower. The entrance fee was NTD 500. We planned to go up initially, but didn't make it due to the hazy weather.

Taipei 101 is the tallest building in Taiwan, 438 meters tall, with sophisticated engineering work. For us, the mall is a nice place to chill down and take a break from the hot weather outside. There is a food court at the lowest level of the shopping mall serving various types of food, while the shopping area is basically resided by branded outlets. Unless you like branded products, or else it is not more than a tall buiding with a shopping mall in it like KLCC.

From Taipei 101 Station, we took MRT to Ximending and reached there at around 6 pm. We spend a few hours there and took a nice buffet dinner there. Follow us to Ximending now.

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